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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | March 31, 2014 02:26 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Ryan P. Aument |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Cyber Snow Days |
| I am preparing to introduce legislation that will allow public school entities to require students to access and complete classroom lessons posted online in order to make up instructional days lost due to bad weather or other emergencies. The particularly harsh winter this school year has resulted in a higher than normal number of school closings for Pennsylvania public schools. These frequent closings forced many schools to eliminate vacations and lengthen the school year in order to meet the statutorily required number of instructional days. Moreover, the repeated cancellations interrupted the education of children. My legislation will help alleviate these concerns in future school years by allowing public school entities, to include school districts, brick-and-mortar charter schools, intermediate units, and area vocational-technical schools, to offer online classroom lessons on days when schools are closed. Under my proposal, a school entity may submit to the Department of Education for approval a plan to require students to access and complete classroom lessons posted on the school entity's website in order to make up as many as three instructional days cancelled due to weather or other emergency. Classroom teachers will be required to develop online lessons that the school entity will post online in the event of a closure. Students will be allowed two weeks to complete the assignments, and students without computer or Internet access at home will be given computer access at school to complete the work after school resumes or will be given paper copies of the work to complete. The school entity's teachers union must approve the plan. Further, for students with disabilities, program and placement decisions made by the student's individualized education program team will prevail. Thank you for your consideration. |
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| View Attachment | ||
Introduced as HB2195